


Once Upon a Time

by Mi_Impossible



Series: Carry On Countdown 2018 [2]
Category: Carry On Series - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Carry On Countdown (Simon Snow), Carry On Countdown 2018, Carry on Countdown Day 2, Gen, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Light Angst, Nostalgia, Prompt Fic, Punk, Sad Ending, Vampires, Watford (Simon Snow), coc2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 13:35:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16744981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mi_Impossible/pseuds/Mi_Impossible
Summary: When Fiona hears Ebb is dead, well. She hates to admit it, but she sort of cries. She knew it would come in time, but both Petty twins are now dead. Her Petty twins. Gone. All that's left is memories.





	Once Upon a Time

**Author's Note:**

> Day two, here we go.  
> Written for the prompt "nostalgia". Does it fit? Barely. Do I care? No.

Once upon a time there was a witch.

The witch was once formidable, powerful, surrounded by friends, loved by most, hated by many, doing exactly as she pleased. Most every Saturday she and her best friends went out and had the most fun they had ever had. No exceptions. Each Saturday _was_ better than the last, no matter what.

Nowadays, most every Saturday, the witch sat in her flat, mildly stoned, listening to seventies and eighties records on repeat.

Her name was Fiona Pitch.

Fiona was not usually a sentimental kind of person, but one cold and miserable Saturday evening in December found her sitting on her couch, head in her hands, weeping silently. _Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols_  played in the background.

The Petty twins were dead.

Every time a new song started Fiona felt exponentially more sad. Once upon a time Nicodemus Petty would have sensed Sex Pistols from a mile away. He used to sneak into the room Fiona and his twin sister, Ebeneza Petty, shared at school every time they played music. (The gender barriers were confused by the twin thing.) Fiona knew she and Ebb had played their music loudly enough to irritate the girls in the dorms next to them, but Nico's capability to turn up every time they listened to music was uncanny. The music certainly wasn't loud enough to be heard from the boys' dorms.

Nico's favourite song on the album had been Pretty Vacant. He thought it described everything teenagers did perfectly. "Just think about it, Fi," he'd drawl in his Londoner way. "We look real pretty, but everything we do means nothing. We don't do or say or think anything meaningful. _Vacant_."

Ebb hadn't liked the Sex Pistols as much as Nico and Fiona did. She thought they were a bit too violent. They used to tease her mercilessly for that. The classic band she had liked better was The Clash, particularly Rock the Casbah. "People doing what they have to do to be happy, regardless of the rules or what they're told they have to do?" Ebb would ask, a couple drinks in, eyes tearing up. "That's a good message."

Fiona could still see Ebb at seventeen, Docs and school trousers caked in mud, dancing across the Watford football pitch, singing at the top of her lungs, voice cracking on notes that were even slightly higher than the others. "The King called up his jet fighters! He said you better earn your paaaaayeee! Drop you bombs between the minarets! Down on -" She would stop singing when she hit the ground. Nico used to tackle people a lot. People being Ebb and Fiona, mostly. It resulted in a lot of Ebb's tipsy The Clash renditions being cut off by his leather-clad shoulder slamming into her back.

Fiona could also see the official photos of Ebb, dead on the floor of the White Chapel in a puddle of her own blood, surrounded by dead little birds. Whenever she saw the pictures, Nico's name peeled itself from The Book in her mind's eye, the words landing on Ebb's outstretched palm.

The Petty twins' respective ends had become inextricably intertwined in Fiona's mind.

Thinking back to her Watford days, Fiona could think of _nothing_ but Ebb and Nico. Her years at school truly had been made up of the Petty twins. The three of them had been inseparable.

The number of times Fiona had been sure she would never see the light of day again as a consequence of something ridiculous she and Nico had dragged Ebb into was endless. Every time the three of them sat on that tiny couch that was really meant for two people in Natasha's office, she had thought it was the end. That nothing could be worse. They wouldn't be able to sneak into town for a month due to tightened security. Natasha would cast a monitor spell on their wands to stop them from casting anything that could conjure alcohol. They'd have detention every night for the rest of their school careers. Fiona had thought of other punishments, but they had all been the worst things she could think of at the time.

In the end, Fiona, Ebb and Nico always climbed the drawbridge, served their detentions, waited out the monitor spells. They did whatever it took to redeem themselves in the eyes of the school, then went right back to disturbing the shit.

This was so much worse than all of those punishments combined. A teenaged Fiona couldn't even have begun to fathom the kind of punishment this was. Her two best friends, two of the people she had loved the most in the world, gone forever.

Nico may have been off limits since he crossed over, but Fiona had sent little birds to Ebb every once in awhile. Ebb had always been happy to answer, and Fiona had gotten sort of fond of stories about the goats. Not that she would admit it to anyone.

When Fiona had gotten word from the families that Ebeneza Petty was one of the casualties of the confrontation with the Humdrum, she had felt sort of hollow. It was _so_ much worse than when Nicodemus had crossed over to the vampires.

Fiona had just been angry when Nico crossed. He had betrayed her. He had betrayed her and Ebb and the world of mages and everything they stood for. But even when he was stricken from the book, and she was forbidden from speaking to him, he wasn't actually dead. Sure, he was dead, but she knew where to find him if she really wanted to. If she ever needed to talk to him, she could. His existence would continue.

Ebb was gone. Really gone. In such a way that Fiona could never reach out to her, no matter what she wanted to do.

Fiona looked at her hands. She thought of Nico's chipped black nail polish.

Fiona looked at her feet. She thought of Ebb's cherry red Docs. Making scuffing noises down Watford's halls. Splashing through mud in the Wavering Wood. Laces being chewed by goats. Bouncing up and down on top of her duvet in time with Rebel Girl.

Fiona looked at her knees. She thought of the time Nico wore a school skirt to protest the dress code. She and Ebb had laughed at his knobbly knees. She thought of the scuffed knees of Ebb's school trousers, grass stained and ripped. Fiona gave a sad sort of laugh. Ebb used to get dress coded all the time for grass stains, holes chewed by random animals, forgetting to tuck her shirt in and forgetting her tie entirely.

All Fiona could think of were their smiles. Nico's smug smirk, ready to cause trouble anytime, anywhere. Ebb's smile, lopsided in a way that should have looked like a smirk but came across as tentative. They had the same smile, really, but their smiles looked so different. Maybe to other people they looked the same, but to Fiona their smiles looked like opposites. Probably because of how close they all were. She knew the Petty twins better than anyone did. She _used_ to know them better than anyone did. No one could know them now.

Things weren't what they were once upon a time.


End file.
